The Star
by chlday
Summary: From Chapter 60 of Ignite Me. Written in Warner's POV.


I squeeze my hand into a fist and press it against my mouth.

My cheeks hurt from smiling; it's such a strange and delightful pain. I must admit: I'm not very familiar with the sensation. Aside from the private hours I've spent with her – our sleepy mornings, our wild nights – I don't recall ever smiling this much. I've never had any reason to.

But here I am.

And there is Juliette.

And God, she is everything I expected her to be and more.

She's standing at the top of the building, and she has their undivided attention. She is asking all the right questions, she's connecting with them, she's speaking so clearly and confidently, and this is it.

This is how my father's tyranny will end.

Oh God, she just said that she has met my father before and wasn't impressed, and I'm laughing so hard I double over, clutching my sides.

He will not like that. He will not like that one bit.

And I love her for it.

I also love the ripples of shock across the crowd of soldiers. They're starting to realize they underestimated her. Some of them are scared of her. A few admire her. This is good. This is what we need.

But we need a little more. And I know what we're missing, and I know it's out there. I can feel it stirring beneath the surface of everything else, my soldiers are inching towards it, she just needs to coax it out of them.

Keep going, my love.

You have them.

Her speech resumes. It's perfect. It's so utterly perfect.

I'm rocking back and forth, tilting from the balls of my feet to the heels, because I can't stand still as I listen to her. She's spiking my adrenaline. She's exhilarating me.

Her words have so much power. I already knew this, of course, because of her journal entries – which are so poignant, so raw. I have read countless books, some of which were considered very famous and important – classics; that's the term people once used to describe them. But none of those books could compare to my Juliette's words. Despite their leather-bound bodies, their crisp and polished words, their systematic rows of text, no published book lives up to Juliette's standards. Her words, though scribbled and scratched, composed by shaky hands, bound by a flimsy notebook – her words are true.

Someone in the crowd just challenged her.

He questioned her.

Pitiful fool.

I look up at Juliette, who responded far more eloquently than I would have, and now she's extending her arms out in front of her.

Yes. Good. Show them what you can do.

And whoa – I can feel it.

Even from all the way down here, I can feel it.

She's focusing on her gift and it's coursing through the air like electricity. I feel my grin widen. My fingertips start to tingle.

I wonder what it would be like to touch her right now, to feel this much energy and power burning beneath her skin.

I close my eyes and tilt my head back, relishing the ecstasy of this moment.

Of her power.

And then I peel my eyes open again, because I need to watch this.

This is going to be incredible.

And oh.

God.

It is.

She's parting the crowd.

My soldiers are stumbling and some are crying out, and Juliette is shoving them all, but she's doing it from her little perch one hundred feet off the ground. She's pushing them, half to the left and half to the right. She's drawing a perfect line right down the middle of the group.

Beautiful.

I tear my gaze away just to look at her. My Juliette. She is the star of this show.

She is the brightest star I have ever seen.

I can hear and feel my soldiers' shock as Castle and Kenji and the others take center stage, but I'm not interested in watching any of them.

I only have eyes for Juliette.

And this next part makes me nervous, because she's going to jump off of the building.

My Juliette.

And I have no doubt in her abilities, but that's still my girl jumping off of a building, and it's enough to make me nervous.

I'm holding my breath.

She's bending her knees.

She jumps.

She soars through the air, blazing and beautiful and bright, like a falling star. I feel another surge of her power, so sudden and strong I gasp.

And the courtyard shatters beneath her feet.

The cracks in the concrete spider-web outward.

Everything seems to freeze.

I don't think anyone is breathing.

And then, the chaos.

And with it, the final thing we needed, the feeling that had been floating just beneath the surface: hope.

And there's so much of it, I stagger and sway as my knees give out under the weight of it. It's sweet and it's heavy. It's all-encompassing. There is no skepticism left in this crowd, no fear, no hesitation.

There is only hope. There's no room for anything else.

Juliette has done it.

My Juliette.

I laugh a delirious laugh for a second, before the microphonic mesh sails my way and I have to regain my composure.

Because this.

This is going to work.


End file.
